Blog

At the end of this month (29th September to be exact), starts Escape’s very first dedicated Motion Graphics course – a 12 week (part time) evening course for creative folk who want to take their digital designs to new heights. And with an internship at CAKE up for grabs, this course is launching its graduates into the industry, firing on all cylinders!

This time of year tends to be a busy time for VFX, particularly for Compositing departments, with film production schedules nearing the end of their pipeline, and VFX teams working towards looming delivery deadlines. During this busy time, it’s great to see our graduates benefitting from the industry’s demand for more experienced Compositors. This is certainly the case for Jacopo Landi who graduated from our Advanced Compositing for VFX course last March and is now working at Double Negative as a Digital Stereo Compositor.

This year’s CG Student Awards competition has just launched and they are now taking entries. As big supporters of this competition we’re delighted to see it back for another year, and it’s looking bigger and better than ever. Dedicated to students studying for careers in Next-Gen Games and VFX / Animation industries, this competition is a great opportunity for students and alumni to showcase their work to industry experts, offering a little helping hand up the VFX career ladder.

You’ve got to take your hat off to the people who do the part-time evening courses at Escape. This is the course that people choose when they need to schedule their learning around other life commitments… and those life commitments usually involve full-time work.

If you’ve not heard of Lee Danskin – well now is the time to get introduced. When it comes to Autodesk Maya, this is a man worth knowing. Director of Technology at Escape-Technology and the man who had a hand in creating Maya 1.0 (the 3D package that revolutionised the industry), Lee has enjoyed an incredible 18-year career working on high profile projects for some of the UK’s biggest VFX studios.

With a new year fast approaching, there's never been a better time to think about your career prospects and embark in something new. For those of you looking to step up the ranks as a VFX ninja, 2014 could be the year to make it happen.

Producing for VFX Tutor Haz Dulull, will be using his wealth of industry experience on VFX heavy projects such as The Dark Knight, Hellboy, and Prince of Persia as well as personal productions; Project Kronos (above) and Fubar Redux, to prepare students for production roles within the VFX industry, here's what it's all about!

Get ahead with tips from our webinar with The Mill’s Thomas Knight. For the vast majority of people, making the jump from training in your chosen field to actually working in it can be a daunting one to make, and this is no less true in the competitive world of VFX. Once you’ve got the skills, how do you stand out from the crowd and launch your career as a VFX artist?

Here at Escape, we're always trying to help our Escapees get the best jobs in the VFX industry, as part of our ongoing commitment to every student who passes through our doors. Sometimes that means they'll work on feature films, or hit TV shows, or sometimes, as Roberto Fera was lucky enough to find out, it means music videos.

Tomorrow, August 1st, we're hosting a free webinar with Head of 3D and Escape tutor, Mark Spevick, who will be revealing some of the secrets at the heart of VFX. Introducing you to key techniques and exposing what this creative career is really like, Mark hopes to demystify the science behind the art.

Beware the Batman, the new show about the Dark Knight, is facing somewhat of an uphill struggle. DC have decided to dumb down their animation hour this year, meaning fans of the incredible Young Justice and Green Lantern shows that were cancelled to make room for it are already on the back foot. And it's not reminiscent of the classic Bats shows; Alfred is a young, ex-military knucklehead. Kevin Conroy isn't providing his voice skills. And it's entirely CG.

Delivering the most up-to-date curriculum to our students is always at the heart of Escape Studios’ training. To achieve this we rely heavily on our industry connections to keep us tuned into the latest trends, technologies and processes at use in the current VFX climate, helping us develop and deliver the most relevant training for those looking to forge a career in VFX. To help us with this, we’ve appointed an Advisory Board of top industry figures who share their thoughts on what’s happening in the industry, where it’s headed and what’s required from VFX artists at this time.

By now, we’re guessing, many of you VFX fans out there will have seen Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel. If you haven’t, we’re sure you have a valid excuse. And for those of you who have, you may have noticed the epic credits list for the VFX department in particular. As we respectfully stay at the end of the movie to watch the credits roll, we’re always proud to spot names we recognise among the list – the names of our graduates.